


Byte the Bullet

by afrocurl



Category: Leverage
Genre: Character Study, Curtain Fic, Developing Relationship, Multi, POV Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-27
Updated: 2013-06-27
Packaged: 2017-12-16 08:55:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/860298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afrocurl/pseuds/afrocurl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Afterwards, she began to think about the different definitions of home, and of friendship, and of love.</p><p>Parker's life had changed and this was how she started to piece things back together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Byte the Bullet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lorax](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lorax/gifts).



> I've been a fan of one of your Yuletide fics for ages, **lorax** and I hope that this lives up to what you were looking for.
> 
> This isn't as much as I had wanted to do, but I hope it fits your requirements.

If Hardison pushed hard enough, Parker would admit that she missed Nate and Sophie.

But only if he pushed. Eliot could just ask nicely. It was like that now with the three of them.

They were still getting used to being a trio and not a quintet, and in the quiet moments, Parker wanted to call Sophie and just _talk_. Not that she remembered talking to Sophie about things when they were in Boston or Portland or even Los Angeles, but now that the three of them were back in Chicago, Parker missed the way it had been, even as she adjusted to everything that was new and different.

She missed the brew pub. She missed Nate complaining about Hardison’s collection of orange soda in the fridge. She missed Alec talking to Nate about the ins and outs of their latest target .

Really, it was the little things that she missed most about Nate and Sophie.

Because she just couldn’t talk to Eliot and Hardison about that. That conversation was decidedly too _personal_ for what they both knew of Parker, even if she had been getting better in the months since they left Portland. 

Instead of talking about feelings (oh how she really wanted a Baby Feels-A-Lot), they were interested in getting their new operation up and running, and not about anything else that passed through Parker’s brain. She was still the quiet one of their trio - she always had been the one to settle back and watch. Hardison had put the news about the Black Book on the dark ‘net, and so he and Eliot talked constantly about the people making inquiries.

She was sure that everyone who would even think of looking there would do their best to do so as anonymously as possible, and so she didn’t want to meet anyone until she absolutely had to.

Maybe it was all those years in foster homes, or running away from them, and not being good with people. She still didn’t trust anyone except for Eliot and Hardison. Well, Nate and Sophie, too, but they were off who knew where doing who knew what.

So instead of focusing on the chatter between Eliot and Hardison (before it turned into bickering), Parker tried to think of other things. She tried to think of what she might say to Sophie if she were still here.

Sophie was still better at that than Parker ever would be, even if some of Sophie’s lessons helped. Leader Parker was still not one-hundred percent comfortable with her role. Maybe she never would be.

She didn’t like to talk face to face, but maybe she could find another way to talk to Sophie. Because she needed to get some of what was going on out to someone other than the two men with whom she lived. Calling would be awkward - Parker hated phones - and if she called there would be Nate in the background - probably a little too eager to hear how things were going, despite what he had said on their last night about being hands-off; talking to him wasn’t the thing she needed. Half of her mind was sure that Nate’s brain would take too long to get over being a Mastermind, that he needed the space to just be Nate Ford, regular guy who once stole money from the rich and powerful but who didn’t do that anymore.

If she couldn't call them, and there was no way for them to meet face to face, then Parker was left with one choice: send an email. After she had made her decision there was an odd moment in which she had to try and remember the email address that Sophie had said she could use, part of a letter that had mysteriously appeared at the brew pub a few days after their last job. It had something to do with professors and spoilers and maybe a dig. She forgot. She remembered, however, that her own email to use was about being the girl who waited. Hardison hadn’t explained that, but that didn’t matter. 

If she thought hard enough, it might come back to her. If not, well, there was Hardison.

Only if Hardison could actually remember that email address, though. She just needed to get it without explaining _why_. Everything had been setting him off this week as they had started to settle into their new apartment, so he was a bit twitchy and even more hesitant about everything.

There wasn’t enough orange soda in all of Chicago, she realized, to keep him calm this week. Nothing else she knew how to do seemed to work either; he’d been so keyed up from looking at the dark ‘net post that he hadn’t even thought about sex.  
-

_Sophie--_

_This felt easier to do than a phone call, and right now Hardison is so paranoid about everything that only email is safe. According to him. Maybe not even email, but I’ll take the risk._

_So, here I am, writing an email._

_Not that I’ve done this much before. Hardison tries to tell me to try new things, even if his paranoia would tell me to not send this right now. I’m sending it anyway, because I think that he’s overthinking everything, what with this set-up taking far too long. Nate doesn’t need to know that, by the way._

_There might be a few things I need to fill you in on, but that might take me a while. I don’t think I have that sort of time. Hardison will notice if I sit on one of his computers for too long. Same goes for me and my cell phone. (Yes, I have a cell phone now. It’s encrypted fifty different ways, according to Hardison, and he and Eliot have ones just like it.)_

_Here’s the quick rundown:_

_Hardison got Eliot to watch _Doctor Who_ \- and I mean watch all of it. I don't know how they managed to do that and still set this place up, but I think it's better for me if I don't think too much about it. And then Eliot found this show called _Inspector Spacetime_ , which is exactly like Who, except it's not. There is no TARDIS; they have a real and proper red phone booth instead. The Inspector wears a bathrobe and a bowler hat._

_Eliot even convinced us to go to a Spacetime con, somewhere outside of Denver. The highlight for me was when some guy said a catch phrase or something and then ripped off his shirt. Otherwise, it felt like we never left our new place. (I've been sworn to secrecy on where we are. Both Eliot and Hardison think that Sterling might well send someone else after us.)_

_Hardison still misses the brew pub, and wants to start another restaurant in our new location._

_Totally not telling you where that is, though._

_Parker_

-

Even after sending the message, Parker knew that she had a lot more that she wanted to say - but then Hardison had come into the living room, yelling about the lack of orange soda in their fridge, and everything else flew out the window.

So to speak.

She hadn’t even scratched the surface of what she had wanted to say, especially as she watched the group try and figure out their new dynamic.

It was rough, in some ways, and in other ways, it was just as at the end of the old Leverage. 

There was a reason why she hadn't mentioned that it had taken them so long to move out of Portland. Why she left out the reasons for choosing Chicago. (Not that she'd tell Sophie where they actually were, and besides, she was pretty sure that Hardison's computers were bouncing their emails all over the place before actually sending them out.)

She'd also glossed over mentioning the happier moments that the three of them had shared. Sophie didn't need to know that thinking about everything that could have gone wrong on that last case had only served to bring them all closer together.

Hardison, Parker realized, was easier to sway into whatever they were doing now than she imagined.

Turned out that there had also been something simmering between Eliot and Hardison, something just beneath the surface.

Who knew?

Well, now she did, and it felt good.

They managed to find a large space where they could set up a huge master suite, with a bed that was more than large enough for all three of them.

On the outside, things appeared relatively chaste: kisses in the morning or when the mood struck, hands held as they explored the city.

It was an unspoken rule: never talk about the night (or day before). Mornings when they woke up tangled in three sets of limbs weren’t mentioned over coffee and breakfast. Slow showers with three sets of hands exploring three bodies weren’t discussed as some new grifter made an inquiry about the Book. Shares moans and shared aches weren’t dinner conversation.

All the physical was that, physical. They found a truce, and kept to it. Exploring each other in one way, but connecting in another, weeks turned into months.

-

There was a case in New York: the client hid behind a law firm, which could have used some help with a makeover itself, but that hadn't come to much, in the end.

One of the lawyers, Mike, had been a hard nut to crack.

Eventually, though, they managed to beat Mike and his scumbag of a client - so they didn't get to destroy half the open space in Westchester County. That made it all okay, to Parker.

Too bad she wanted to tell someone part of the con. Problem was, the only other people she saw on a regular basis had planned the whole thing with her.

In the end, she spoke to Eliot and Hardison more with her body than in words, subtle shifts in her hips speaking of what she needed after a job just as well as her eyes conveyed when she felt beaten down by the suffering of their latest client.

Maybe it was time for another email to Sophie.

It had been a good few months since the last one, and even if Sophie’s response had been short, there was something just under the surface that told Parker that Sophie had been holding back, just as she had.

Room for improvement, as always. Room in Parker’s heart, in her bed, for the two men who mattered most to her; room for a friendship with Sophie and Nate, mellowed with distance and time.

Room for anything, if Parker knew best.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for my usual set of betas. Your help was invaluable.


End file.
